Expanding on the Overcoming Racism session from 2020 - Rural Minnesota: Building a Racial Justice Movement - this session will focus on the need for rural communities to expand collaborations with BIPOC community members, introducing a Continuum of Collaboration which identifies stages of collaboration and the components necessary for true, strong and vibrant collaborations to form.

This session will explore the difficulties of forming true partnerships in rural communities. It will do this by introducing a Continuum of Collaboration. We know that it is common for power imbalances to happen in the formation of partnerships or collaborations. This Continuum will explore how these power balances show up and give practical tips for avoiding them. In addition, we will explore the ideas of relationship and trust building. True collaborations should be about shared goals and objectives, but many collaborations are about the goals of the lead partner. Identifying how this is a part of white supremacy culture and ways to interrupt these processes and to create more equitable partnerships is a key component of the session. 
 
 In addition, we will talk about the difficulties many rural communities have in forming collaborations with BIPOC community members. It is not uncommon to hear in many rural communities that there just aren't that many BIPOC communities members so it is hard to form collaborations. In reality, this is more about a lack of relationship and trust building. How this is also a form of white supremacy culture and how we can work to grow relationships and trust that will create genuine change.